Temping and contract employment: is it right for you?

Feb 1, 2018

If you, like many people in the UK, have been struggling to find a job and become disheartened by the seemingly endless process of writing cover letters and sending out your CV only to hear nothing back then it may be time to expand your search.

By extending your job hunt beyond just permanent roles, you could find work, learn new skills and make yourself more employable as a result.

The latest report by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) has shown that temporary jobs experienced a "strong and accelerated" rise in February, with temporary staff placements seeing the greatest increase in numbers since May 2007. Is this a growth area you can afford to miss out on? As well as being a strong sector for new job roles, the hourly pay rates for temporary and contract staff also rose modestly last month, in contrast to permanent job pay rises, which for many were – for another year – put on hold.

Growth areas for temp work

If you have skills in areas where there’s a short supply of talent then you can really benefit from the current influx of contract and temp work. Perhaps unsurprisingly, IT and computing sector has seen continued accelerated growth and is an area where companies are currently desperate for employees on shorter term contracts.

Also in high demand are engineers, business analysts, payroll assistants and chefs all being professions where there are more jobs than there are experienced people to fill them. If you have skills in any of these specialisations, or have key transferable skills that you can use, then these sorts of positions could be the solution you’re looking for.

The benefits of contract jobs

Taking a temporary or contract job shouldn’t be seen as a poor substitute for a permanent job. Although it may not offer the same longer-term job security, it can have a lot of benefits to you as a jobseeker.

For example, temporary work can allow you to learn new skills and possibly even undergo training that you otherwise might not have done. This can really help to enrich your CV and possibly lead to that dream permanent job down the line.

There’s also the opportunity to shine when doing a contract position with those workers who are reliable and productive often identified and sometimes offered something more permanent as a result. There’s freedom to a temporary position and if you take something on as a stop-gap whilst looking for a longer-term role you are able to move on quickly and easily.